Watched
by Lucinda
Summary: Companion to 'Watching'.  Angel's not entirely oblivious.


Author: Lucinda

Rated y-14 just to be safe and for a bad word.

Disclaimer: I don't own anyone that appeared on screen for BtVS.

Distribution: anyone who has permission for previous Angel-centric fics, or who has 'Watching'.

Notes: set in season 3, after Angel's return is known. Companion story to 'Watching'

……………………………

Someone had been there again. Lurking near his home, watching him from between the boards that almost blocked the deadly sunlight from the rooms of the mansion. Someone had been right there.

While he was exposed, all his masks and pretenses of humanity stripped away. While he slept, dreaming of his past, of his desires and fears.

While he was defenseless.

Angel reached out, wondering if his fingers now rested in the same place as the one who had been watching him. If they watched for curiosity's sake, or as part of a plot. If they were only biding their time before killing him, in the same way that he'd watched so many people as Angelus. If he was supposed to know that he was being watched, or if it was someone's deadly secret, a measure of power over him.

Perhaps he deserved this. Someone lurking, where he couldn't see them, couldn't stop them. Able to do whatever they wanted, while he was asleep. Perhaps it was revenge for what he had done before, or someone plotting his death in repayment for their sister, their brother, their lover... He, no, Angelus, had certainly killed enough people to inspire revenge.

Perhaps Rupert Giles sought answers for his Watcher colleagues. He'd had questions about vampires, about the differences of a soul. Perhaps Giles sought a good moment to take revenge for the death of his lover, the gypsy woman. It had been an artistic death, gloriously dark and twisted, full of pain and suffering for the man. Revenge would be very understandable.

For a few moments, he'd wondered if it might be the boy, Xander. He'd never liked him, never trusted him. He'd lost track of the times he'd been accused of staring at the boy's neck, of drooling after Buffy, of capturing the eyes of every pretty girl the boy had chased. But Xander Harris wouldn't just keep watching, he'd soon move to an attack of some sort.

Not Buffy. Slayer or not, she tried so hard to deny his vampire nature. She would come by in the late afternoons or evenings, when he'd first woke, and they'd try to pretend that nothing had changed. And he would have known if a Slayer lurked that close, the presence of such a danger would have woke him from his sleep. And the dark skinned Slayer would have attacked, though she had felt just as dangerous as Buffy. It wasn't a Slayer watching him.

Drusilla would have, if she could slip outside in the sunlight. She delighted in gathering secrets, pieces to try to understand someone. His mad daughter and plaything... Guilt stabbed at him, and Angel clenched one hand. No, Drusilla could no more face the sunlight than he could.

He took a deep breath, trying to catch the scent of whoever had been there, watching him. Spying on him. Learning all of his secrets. Studying him when he was vulnerable.

It frightened him. Angel sighed, his head tilting to rest against the boards. His privacy was as fragile as tissue paper, and someone kept tearing it away from him, leaving nothing but an illusion. It frightened him, and also made him a bit angry. He was supposed to be a master vampire, strong, powerful, brave... and someone was watching him sleep.

Just as he'd watched so many others, before toying with them in a hundred gruesome fashions that had seemed amusing at the time. Part of him was certain that he deserved this. A fitting punishment for his past sins.

More frustrating was the idea that he felt like he should know who had been here. That he should be able to give the name, to know who, and perhaps knowing who would tell him why.

Who had lurked outside his windows? The same hidden watcher had also been inside the mansion, watching as he slept. Whoever it was, they had left his door open that afternoon, had moved several of the objects in the hall and the dining room. Little signs that they had been in his home, that the sunlight was no defense against this person.

Signs that he didn't have the power anymore.

Angel shivered, wishing that he could feel safe in his home once more. While he was at it, he wished that he could stop feeling like he had somehow brought this onto himself. Perhaps one day, his efforts at self deception would work.

This was not that day.

Walking away from the boards, Angel began the movements of his Tai Chi. The meditations and exercises wouldn't change the fact that he'd been watched. But if he was fortunate, they would distract him from his unease and guilt. And Buffy would be here soon, and he would no longer have time to dwell on his stalker.

end Watched.


End file.
